What FP+ has done to our touring.

[zavandor]

I actually think they will sell more parkhoppers with FP+.
With FP+ a good strategy can be:
- rope drop at one park
- ride with minimal waits until lunch
- lunch in a sit down restaurant when outside it's very hot
- back to the resort for a nap/pool
- back to a different park where you can you FP+

This worked very well for me on most days.

Also, you can use all 3 FP+s for the evening on the day of arrival and on the morning when you leave, allowing to optimize all days of your vacation.

I think the system will be adjusted over time. Sooner than later I hope we'll get to book FP+ in different park for parkhopping and a 4th FP+ at the MK.
But as it is I'm already happy.

 

[OrangeCountyCommuter]

For people like me FP+ is going to cost Disney $$$.

Let's use my last trip as an example. I decided I wanted to ride Toy Story Mania while I was there. In the past this meant getting to the park early, getting a fast pass and killing a few hours riding rides, having some food etc.

Now.. I booked my FP time. Showed up, rode ride and left. Time spent in park, less then 45 minutes. Money spent in park. ZERO

Not to mention the entire" YOU WILL PLAN YOUR VACATION DOWN TO THE LAST MINUTE" has me so turned off that I am planning to go to Universal. Sure I have to stand in line but at least they will have new stuff to see and I won't be standing line for a scratchy film viewing of Soarin' or the Great Movie Ride where the most recent movie update was at least a decade ago, or other rides and attractions that haven't been updated in decades.

Maybe Avatar will do something for me but for a solo adult traveler Disney hasn't added anything worth going out of my way to see in a long time IMHO (Sorry but hauling Fantasyland ride clones over from DL and installing a boring show for a meet and greet didn't do much for me LOL!)

I am so over Disney dining that I either eat at the Swan/Dolphin or offsite. Sorry but the food is boring, the service is subpar and the prices don't reflect either of those issues. I can eat better food near my house so why spend extra for sub par food and service?

Overall I don't see FP+ making DIsney any money off of me but I know others would step on their grandmother to throw cash at Disney so as a stockholder I am glad!

 

[jade1]

I actually think they will sell more parkhoppers with FP+.
With FP+ a good strategy can be:
- rope drop at one park
- ride with minimal waits until lunch
- lunch in a sit down restaurant when outside it's very hot
- back to the resort for a nap/pool
- back to a different park where you can you FP+

This worked very well for me on most days.

Also, you can use all 3 FP+s for the evening on the day of arrival and on the morning when you leave, allowing to optimize all days of your vacation.

I think the system will be adjusted over time. Sooner than later I hope we'll get to book FP+ in different park for parkhopping and a 4th FP+ at the MK.
But as it is I'm already happy.

Yep I think this will be a common guest approach, and a great one IMO. Anybody asking me for a first time WDW trip advice will get exactly this.

We have been so many times, the AM RD portion is left out. So the 2nd half of the scenario is perfect for us.

As for the bold-even better for us. We fly back evenings so we check out by 11. Now we can have 3 FP+ ready for that afternoon just waiting-will make much improved last day. And yes arrival afternoon will now be vastly improved-and it was great before.

 

[Simba's Mom]

For people like me FP+ is going to cost Disney $$$.

Let's use my last trip as an example. I decided I wanted to ride Toy Story Mania while I was there. In the past this meant getting to the park early, getting a fast pass and killing a few hours riding rides, having some food etc.

Now.. I booked my FP time. Showed up, rode ride and left. Time spent in park, less then 45 minutes. Money spent in park. ZERO

That's exactly what I noticed also. I used to pull a FP, then stroll around, maybe browse and buy in some gift shops until my FP time. And I just hate the idea of preplanning every day before we even get there. I suppose I could wait and get FP+ at the parks, or a couple days beforehand, but I'm a little afraid of waiting since so many people can get FP+ up to 60 days out. What'll be left if I wait.

 

[tjkraz]

For people like me FP+ is going to cost Disney $$$.

Let's use my last trip as an example. I decided I wanted to ride Toy Story Mania while I was there. In the past this meant getting to the park early, getting a fast pass and killing a few hours riding rides, having some food etc.

Now.. I booked my FP time. Showed up, rode ride and left. Time spent in park, less then 45 minutes. Money spent in park. ZERO.

Agree with you there. Over the long-haul, our trips may play-out similarly. I'd be curious to see what sort of guest habits Disney projected when modeling the system.

However, bear in mind that there are potential savings associated with you spending less time in the park. If you come in..ride one attraction...and get out, Disney's overhead is a lot lower than if you had taken a paper FP, ridden a couple other attractions, browsed the gift shops, sat on a park bench, and so on.

Yes they have a reduced opportunity to sell you a t-shirt or turkey leg...but that also frees-up capacity (resources) for the park to accommodate other guests.

In our case, Disney didn't have much hope of selling us a t-shirt even when we aimlessly wandered the gift shops for 30 minutes. It was just killing time.

I suppose I could wait and get FP+ at the parks, or a couple days beforehand, but I'm a little afraid of waiting since so many people can get FP+ up to 60 days out. What'll be left if I wait.

Fortunately you have the ability to gauge FP+ availability yourself...as long as you have park tickets / AP linked to your MDE account.

Right now...noon on Wednesday, March 5...every single WDW attraction, show, character meet, etc. is available for booking tomorrow. Every one.

Toy Story Mania, Illuminations, Mickey meet & greet.

I think the doom-and-gloom scenarios are helping to taint impressions of the system. I've been regularly monitoring FP+ availability since January...through MLK and President's Day weekends. Most restrictive things I've seen are occasionally Illuminations viewing will fill up 1-2 days early. And TSM has been known to fill by 4-6pm for the next day.

Other than that, the limits of 3 FP+ per day, high number of attractions, tiering at DHS and Epcot and lack of planning by many guests is giving guests almost unlimited flexibility.

 

[dwelty]

FP+ has improved our experience as well. We are not rope drop people and would always miss opportunities to grab fast passes because by the time we got to the park they were often gone, or too late in the evening to be useful to us.

We now schedule our fast passes for mid day or afternoon, ride our rides, walk around a little, eat lunch and then head back to the resort. I am not disagreeing with you that FP+ might change spending habits, I guess what I am saying is that what you describe has been our touring style all along.

Being from the West Coast where both Anaheim parks are crammed to the gills with attractions, the Orlando parks feel like half day parks to us anyway. The resort experience is where Orlando really outshines Anaheim, and that is were we like to spend a lot of our time.

 

[Splashboat]

For people like me FP+ is going to cost Disney $$$.

Let's use my last trip as an example. I decided I wanted to ride Toy Story Mania while I was there. In the past this meant getting to the park early, getting a fast pass and killing a few hours riding rides, having some food etc.

Now.. I booked my FP time. Showed up, rode ride and left. Time spent in park, less then 45 minutes. Money spent in park. ZERO

Not to mention the entire" YOU WILL PLAN YOUR VACATION DOWN TO THE LAST MINUTE" has me so turned off that I am planning to go to Universal.

We still enjoy the Disney parks and the resorts but agree with you and the OP. We don't have annual passes this year and did not buy the park hopper for the first time. We will spend time at the parks but we will also explore other places during our next trip which we hadn't done as of yet.

I was watching a show on Disney resorts recently and they said Walt Disney said he wants Disney to be a place where people can escape.

Nothing screams everyday work like having to plan your day on an app and seeing Starbucks.

We didn't like the magic bands, we miss the Snow White ride and really miss the ritual trip to the bakery at MK.
Obviously some people love it, we just don't fall into that category. We will still go to Disney but venture out to other things which is probably good anyway.

 

[bwang123]

This is our second DVC trip where we have used FP+, and I now know one thing for sure it has done for our Disney touring. At least for us, we find we spend far less time and money in the parks than we used to and far more time just relaxing at the resort and going off site to eat and shop. With Disney making this move and building so many DVC resorts, they may actually be shooting themselves in the foot when it comes to those of us who have traditionally spent the most time and money there over the years.

For neither our 10 day trip in Dec. nor this one so far have we gone back into the parks after we have come back to the resort. We have gone to the parks in the morning to experience lower crowds, and have come back to the villa and either cooked our own meal or gone off site do dine in the evening. Even the thought of going back to see Wishes or Illuminations holds no interest, because it means battling the crowds for a spot to watch something that we've seen dozens of times just to hold our viewing spot.

If these last two trips with FP+ are any indication, this might just have cured me of some of my Disney excess. I am even thinking of how and where I can exchange my points for places other than Disney locations. For 17 years I have been saying that purchasing DVC was the best thing we ever did. Now I'm starting to rethink that.

I am interested to hear how your experience has to do with FP+. Do you just not like the change and are frustrated so you are spending time elsewhere? Or was it because you used all of your FP+ for rides in the morning and then left? You could do that with FP- or no FP at all because rides are short in the AM. You didn't really explain a lot from that aspect.

It had a totally different effect on us. FP+ just made us miss more rope drops because we knew we didn't have to rush to get TSMM FP- or we knew could get on our favorite rides at MK right away even arriving at 10AM.

 

[bwvBound]

I'm rather gloomy that I planned and invited family to join us for a WDW vacation long before FP+ was introduced. Going forward, I will be skipping the parks entirely and will never again attempt to plan a multi-household trip to WDW.

Our dilemma is that we will be using "special event park tickets" that are picked up on arrival. We have our Magic Bands and our room reservations but can't book FP+ until we pick up our tickets. I am simply "miffed" at the idea of paying for the tickets to be mailed to me and too embarrassed/afraid to attempt booking FP+ on arrival.

WDW's Dining plans have, in the past, changed where/how we dine as we absolutely refuse to put $100 deposit on a dining reservation. We now only do walk-up dining or make our own meals in the room. I have a feeling that FP+ will now also change the way we do parks (leaning towards no parks!) unless DVC intervenes to make the process more favorable for their members.

 

[OrangeCountyCommuter]

Agree with you there. Over the long-haul, our trips may play-out similarly. I'd be curious to see what sort of guest habits Disney projected when modeling the system.

However, bear in mind that there are potential savings associated with you spending less time in the park. If you come in..ride one attraction...and get out, Disney's overhead is a lot lower than if you had taken a paper FP, ridden a couple other attractions, browsed the gift shops, sat on a park bench, and so on.

Yes they have a reduced opportunity to sell you a t-shirt or turkey leg...but that also frees-up capacity (resources) for the park to accommodate other guests.

In our case, Disney didn't have much hope of selling us a t-shirt even when we aimlessly wandered the gift shops for 30 minutes. It was just killing time.



.

But I am not freeing up one of the most profitable pieces of the capacity, a room to rent for cash.

So now they are not getting much extra revenue from my stay, they are not getting the room rent and they can't sell my room as some overpriced package. Not a win/win for Disney

 

[sandpebbles]

FP+ is a disaster for us. We have older kids, who loved going to Disney, but our trip in February was a bummer. There are not that many rides in each park for the older kids. Not being able to go on Soarin and test track with FP+ makes no sense. It forced you to go to the park early to avoid long lines. At $99/day standing in line for 45 minutes doesn't make sense-common or economic. We feel abused. We bought DVC to enjoy the parks, but the new system has us looking to spend our vacation dollars elsewhere.

 

[DisneyStarWisher]

We haven't experienced FP+ yet. We will in October for the first time. I do have to say it has made me nervous regarding our touring style. We use 10-day NE Park Hoppers and usually use only 1-2 days each trip. We usually pop into a park, ride a couple of rides, and move on to another park. It's not unusual for us to experience 3 parks in one day. It makes it hard to decide which park to FP when 3 parks are involved. Obviously, not the first park, but then which of the other two parks? And then which order is the best? Very hard decisions.

 

[Disney On The Bayou]

We're here now enjoying FP+. For us FP+ has added relaxing back into the Disney Vacation equation. Gone are the days we had to kill ourselves and others to get a FP for Toy Story at a reasonable time or one and which we can plan for. Gone are the days of "Jockey'ing" around the parks in search of FPs. It's almost barbaric to think of the old FP system as compared to FP+.

 

[DeeCee735]

I'm a pre-planner by nature, and that has always worked for me and my family or whomever joins me on DVC trips.

However, I do find that with FP+ pre-planning has become necessary and that's weird to me. My husband is a more minute to minute guy and I can see how the new system can be an issue for those who don't know what they're in the mood for until that day comes along.

As far as how it's changed our park habits, I can say it's a bit easier to know we don't have to run into a park too early. During our February trip, we co-ordinated our FP times to at least overlap each other. While the kids (all adults) went into the parks early for their commando energetic park touring style, I hung back at the resort and relaxed over breakfast or with a book or my coffee, meeting them for our FP's and staying later in the park for dinner and a show.

Park touring has slowed down for my DH and I because we are there often, don't like the ticket prices (I have an AP, he a 10 day no expire) and have owned for 14 years so we slowed down with running around the parks everyday anyway. I don't think FP changed that at all, I think it's a normal evolution for the frequency of visting. There are so many things outside the parks we haven't done - still after 14 years - that I try to plan a day or two of something new. Segway around Fort Wilderness, lunch in a resort restaurant we've never eaten at, spa treatments which are big for me - so I do that one day each trip.

Next time around I want to parasail, spend a day at DTD with a night in the dine in AMC theater and one full pool/bar only day with dinner in Artist Point

All in all, we love our DVC as much now as we did the day we bought it, and look forward to continuing great trips with family and friends.

 

[Meggysmum]

As I said on another thread I certainly didn't find FP+ enhanced my trip but it did change it.

It was our 10th trip and we also found that we spent far less time at the parks than before. Previously we arrived at RD (transatlantic flight makes that easy!) and picked up and used FPs throughout the day meaning we stayed in the parks, ate, shopped, purchased snacks etc whilst waiting for our next slot. This meant that we tended to stay all day.

On our last trip we often arrived at RD still. Stayed an hour or two whilst crowds were low, we returned to our villa, headed offsite for lunch, hit the malls, ate offsite in the early evening and then popped back in to the parks to use our FP+ and watch the fireworks.

As has been said, Disney may have shot themselves in the foot, people can arrange their FP+ for 3 consecutive hours therefore ride their 3 favourite rides by being in the park 1.5-2hrs and the leave again. We are onsite so no parking or inconvenience to us really.

 

[DeeCee735]

We find park tickets to expensive to just spend 2.5 hours in a park, even though I have an AP. The rest of my family used to buy no expire hoppers. Now we just pay for no expires and dropped the hopper part of the ticket.

As I mentioned in my previous post, with the frequency of visits, the cost of park tickets and the new FP+ we take our time getting to the parks, don't go every day, but do tend to spend at least 5 hours. We have cut costs by not buying any souvenirs, having breakfast in the room, eating one sit down a day with a healthy snack somewhere in the day. This is enough food to keep us full and satisfied while cutting costs.

This isn't due to FP+ program but more so to rising dining and park prices. Not to mention the ridiculous amount of money for pins, key chains, tee shirts, hats, etc.

 

[jakenjess]

We haven't experienced FP+ yet. We will in October for the first time. I do have to say it has made me nervous regarding our touring style. We use 10-day NE Park Hoppers and usually use only 1-2 days each trip. We usually pop into a park, ride a couple of rides, and move on to another park. It's not unusual for us to experience 3 parks in one day. It makes it hard to decide which park to FP when 3 parks are involved. Obviously, not the first park, but then which of the other two parks? And then which order is the best? Very hard decisions.

This is exactly our dilemma. Our oldest son will only have one park day with us, and we actually do all four parks in one day. Which park to FP? And the tiering of FPs makes it even more difficult. Can't do both TT and Soarin, or both Toy Story and Rock 'n Roller Coaster. I'm trying to reserve judgment, but just trying to plan one day is giving me a headache.

 

[oldfastpassxpert]

Soarin and toy story have no single rider lines... So you could fast pass those. Idk what the answer to that one is. The only times I've killed more than two parks in a day, I didn't have my kids yet. I like two days per park when I go now...that way I don't miss anything.

 

[sandpebbles]

The more I think about it the more I believe FP+, with the current rules, will end up hurting Disney in the long run. Clearly some people like it. Those who choose to tour one park casually, it has advantages ( though when we were there on Feb 11 there were lines of 15-20 minutes at the kiosks in Epcot. I can't imagine people not staying at a Disney Resort will stand for that long term). People who want to go to multiple parks, however, will NOT be able to rider their favorite rides, which negates the reason behind buying park hoppers.

Second, I do not recall people saying they were going to stop going to the parks because they did not like the old FP system. There are, however, lots of people indicating they will be spending their vacation dollars elsewhere because of the new FP+ rules. Even if its 50-50 or 70-30 in favor of the new system, Disney will be losing a significant portion of Disney loyalists.

 

[jade1]

with the current rules

Welcome to the boards.

And that's the key. Sounds like offsite tests are starting-so it's going to be changing a lot going forward IMO.

People who want to go to multiple parks, however, will NOT be able to rider their favorite rides, which negates the reason behind buying park hoppers.

I disagree. But keep in mind we travel peak weeks. With FP+ we "could" open a park and ride what we want by early afternoon. Then we have FP+ for the 2nd park (even if we break for pool time). With FP- arriving late at that 2nd park was all hour (or 2) plus waits for the hot headliners and all FP's gone.

To me the FP- was negating hopping, because we would obtain a major headliner FP- at noon that had a return time for 8PM. No way to hop.

Second, I do not recall people saying they were going to stop going to the parks because they did not like the old FP system.

Don't recall from where?

Since the average guest arrives between noon and 2PM (I have heard) I would guess WDW feedback had constant complaints that FP was gone before folks could get them, or at least to early-again at least peak weeks when guests paid the max prices.